Alipay, the e-payment arm of Chinese technology giant Alibaba Group, announced on Tuesday that more than 100 million people participated in sending lucky money, or Hongbao in Chinese, via mobile apps during the past Chinese New Year holiday.

As we look at how software will be evolving, traditional PC applications and mobile apps have some substantial differences, key among them the depth and flexibility traditional applications offer that are often an anathema to mobile users.

Technology should make our lives easier. But having a dozen of more apps competing for our attention does the reverse. Integration is key, and that is the big problem in the CES home automation sector.